(Fighting New Coronary Pneumonia) Hong Kong Medical Experts: The third wave of epidemic risk is a "qualitative" change from the previous two waves
China News Service, Hong Kong, July 22 (Reporter Han Xingtong) The third wave of the epidemic in Hong Kong is raging. The number of confirmed diagnoses has soared in the past few days, and there is no sign of slowing down. Comparing the first wave and the second wave of the epidemic, Hong Kong medical experts pointed out in an interview with a reporter from China News Agency on the 22nd that the third wave of epidemic risk is a "qualitative" change: the previous effective tracking and isolation measures have failed, and citizens have fallen into " Anti-epidemic fatigue", leading to extremely high risks now.
In response to the first wave of imported cases from the Mainland and the second wave of imported cases from overseas, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government’s epidemic prevention measures were very effective and successfully controlled the epidemic. Hong Kong once maintained a good record of no local confirmed cases for more than 20 days. Dong Jisheng of the Hong Kong Medical Association believes that this is because the source and chain of transmission of the first and second waves of the epidemic are very clear, and the effect of contact tracing and rapid isolation is very good.
However, most of the third wave of epidemics that suddenly broke out in early July were local cases with unknown origin. The virus spread rapidly in the community. This time, neither the source nor the transmission chain could be identified, and the previous tracking and isolation methods immediately failed. "Unable to take effective isolation measures, we can only retreat to the second line of defense." The "second line of defense" Tang Jisheng refers to is to rely on citizens to prevent themselves from getting infected. "But we can see that compared with before, many people are obviously lax and have'anti-epidemic fatigue'", so even the second line of defense is not stable.
Tang Jisheng believes that compared with the previous two waves, the danger of the third wave is not only a change in "quantity" but also a "qualitative" change. The situation is very severe and the risk is quite high.
Pan Pei-chuan, chairman of the Hong Kong Medical Staff Federation and a consultant psychiatrist at the United Hospital, also mentioned that under the third wave of the epidemic, citizens were lax, and social activities and social gatherings were restarted, all of which increased the risk of infection.
According to the figures released by the Hong Kong Hospital Authority (HA), as of now, the Hospital Authority has opened 1,207 negative pressure beds with a utilization rate of 70.3%, and a total of 650 negative pressure wards, with a utilization rate of 75.4%. Pan Peiqiu pointed out that this number has reached a "dangerous level." As far as he knows, the demand for related facilities in the hospital is now tight. If the daily diagnosis continues to rise by nearly 100, the isolation ward will soon be used up and the medical system is facing collapse.
When medical resources and manpower are in short supply, there are still a large number of asymptomatic citizens who go to emergency and emergency departments and general outpatient clinics for virus tests every day. Pan Peiqiu believes that these will add to the burden of the medical system.
Tang Jisheng reminded not to "misallocation of resources" at this critical moment. He criticized some people for abusing medical resources, making potential patients wait for the results longer. "At present, it takes nearly a week for some people with symptoms to receive the results. He has no idea how many people have been infected during this time." Tang Jisheng emphasized that the time for such people to get test results must be shortened to less than two working days. At the same time, he believes that all people who go to the accident and emergency department must be tested for the virus. "It would be too dangerous to judge whether the person concerned needs to be tested based on the clinical experience of the doctor alone." (Finish)